Lion’s tail, Swan’s neck, & Foxtail – in the Botanical Garden?!?

Agave attenuate is a succulent native to central Mexico. It has a large symmetrical impressive rosette of leaves, green-grey in color, without thorns (the only agave without thorns and the reason for its being so popular in gardening)

. A. attenuate, like other Agave species, flowers only once and afterwards dies (i.e. it is monocarpic). Blooming occurs only in mature plants (usually when the plant reaches about 10 years old, and sometimes after several decades). The mother plant then dies, but leave several buds created in vegetative reproduction. The inflorescent bent stalk can reach 3 meters in length. The curved shape has led to its many creative common names, such as Swan’s neck, Lion’s tail, and Foxtail.

At the beginning of December, a 20-year-old A. attenuate plant flowered for the first time. Despite the expected sad death of the mother plant, many buds have emerged from it and we will patiently wait for them to bloom.